The Minotaur
- Decorate your hooves and horns with designs or colors of personal significance.
- Be adept at navigation, pattern recognition, or puzzles.
- Be surprisingly graceful and swift for your size, like normal bulls.
- Be intimidated by your size or your overly calculating nature.
- Think you can see through stone.
- Rely on you for physical tasks concerning a profession.
Physical Description
Minotaurs are tall, bulky humanoids with the bovine features such as horns, hooves, and elongated faces. Their fur patterns are frequently monotone in deep browns or blacks, though white or gray aren’t uncommon. Though the large size of a minotaur might cause one think they are clumsy, the truth is quite the opposite. Minotaur hooves rest on a delicate balance point, making their footfalls quiet and precise. However, when there is a need to be heard, the steps of a minotaur can fall like thunder.
A minotaur’s horns are a source of pride and often accented by pieces of fashion. Those with longer horns add rings and chains around them, cast in whatever rare metals are affordable, or dye or engrave patterns along them. Those with not much horn to speak of instead shave their fur around the base of the horns, possibly adding stylish circular tattoos to the surrounding skin or fitting metal caps onto their tips. This draws attention to an otherwise overlooked feature.
Anything Special?
These do not change, unless you have the corresponding Ancestry Talent. All Minotaur start with these.
Base Stats
- Age. .
- Size. Medium.
- Associated Traits. Minotaur, Mythical Beast, and Humanoid
- Traditional A.Boost Spread. Traditionally, Minotaur are known for their strength, hardiness, and spiritualism. A select few are known for their cunning, depending on the world and their profession.
- Language(s). Common, Taurus (+1 per your positive Cha Mod when starting the game, list here)
- Speed(s). 25 ft
- Special Senses. Low-Light Vision, Darkvision 30 ft
- HP (+ HP/level). 10 (+1)
Ancestry Talents
| Minotaur Origin |
Minotaur are known for two things: their horns, and their pathfinding skill.
You have a Natural Weapon you are proficient in. They are horns that deal 1d6 +(STR or DEX) Piercing damage. They are melee weapons that are part of the Unarmed Weapon Group, and have the Agile ⚙️ and Finesse ⚙️ traits.
Additionally, you can remember any path you've taken without fail, automatically succeeding on Adventuring checks (or similar) to navigate through or find pathways you've already traveled. This also works in mazes or if the path has changed in any way.
This Talent cannot be swapped.
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| Goliath Build |
The legacy of your people is one of the select few whose physical size can be felt throughout your adventure.
You count as one size category larger for the sake of determining carry weight and factors like pushing, dragging, and Grappling.
At 5th character level, and every level beyond such, you have the option of permanently increasing your base size to Large. For the sake of moving through spaces, doorways, and similar; you are still Medium and suffer no consequences. Otherwise, increases your health by +1 per character level, and stacks with the carrying capacity modifications above. This cannot be undone, and this talent becomes unswappable.
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| Heedless Charge |
Minotaur often cannot be stopped once they are set in motion.
You learn the ‘Overrun’ rank 0 maneuver
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| Heritage Choice |
You may pick a heritage. You gain everything listed from such. |
Some of your talents can swapped for the ones listed below, or be taken at a later levels via
Character Progression. If your GM is using the
Classic Ancestries optional rule, you can only take the talents below as you level up, after level 1.
Furthermore, due to the nature of Minotaur, they can gain talents available to other Ancestries who count as 'Mythical Beastfolk'. Those talents will be listed underneath their unique talents for each section below.
Here are the talents you can swap at level 1.
Here are the ancestry talents you can gain at later levels.
Unlockable at Character level 3
Unlockable at Character level 5
Unlockable at Character level 7
Unlockable at Character level 9
Unlockable at Character level 11
Note: The
Origin Customization rule allows you to swap any skill proficiency gained for another you don't have, if playing with traditional or other rules.
Golarion
Base
Minotaurs stalk complex passageways, whether natural or artificial, and are masters of stone architecture. Inquisitive and steadfast, these bovine humanoids spend their lives perfecting the pursuit that calls to them, which can sometimes lead them far from the enclaves where they were raised. Minotaurs are originally from the Iblydos archipelago but have spread far and wide across Golarion, forming close-knit communities often near mountains or beneath the surface of the earth. Though sometimes mistaken for simple brutes, minotaurs have scholars and warriors alike. Those who can look past their appearance will find an affinity for building and navigation, as well as creative problem-solving.
The myth many minotaurs tell of their origins is one of craft, curses, and misunderstanding. Millennia ago, Iblydos was filled with living deities who walked among and ruled the mortal people. A stonemason named Tavdrinos, admired by mortals and hero-gods alike, received a vision from a hero-god to create a glorious temple, though the myth doesn’t name which one. The mason found the images of the vision murky: scrambled glimpses of twisting columns, charging bulls, and a defiant stand made by an unknown figure. It was hardly a detailed commission, but one does not refuse a divine order. The mason labored for 17 years before his task was done. The three-story temple celebrated the glory of the hero-god and their sacred animal, the bull. Upon the hero-god’s arrival, Tavdrinos expected to be met with praise and congratulations, but the deity flew into a rage instead. Tavdrinos had misunderstood the vision, for the bull was a hated beast, not a celebrated ally. As punishment for this accidental insult, the hero-god cursed Tavdrinos with the hated shape of the bull. Angered by both the curse and his failure to please the deity, the mason retreated to a series of caves under the temple, where he continued his work as the first minotaur.
Society
Minotaurs typically reside within insular, subterranean communal enclaves. They take great pride in their architectural prowess, hewing buildings out of stone and natural caves alike. An enclave often has almost twice as many buildings as it needs, with the extra structures serving as functional art. Young minotaurs practice their hunting and stalking skills in the empty buildings, with each generation adding a small expansion or fresco on the walls. Expansions like twisting hallways, unexpected overhangs, shared gardens, and a variety of other such contrivances create numerous social spaces and quiet areas for calm reflection, so long as the traveler is able to keep from becoming lost by the unusual architectural flow.
Myths surrounding minotaurs lead most to believe they are fierce carnivores, or even cannibals in the darkest of legends. In reality, most minotaur societies are hunter-gatherers, feeding off lichen and other flora. Their reputation as fierce hunters stems from monthly rituals, when the most accomplished stalkers venture out and bring back dangerous prey. The return of these hunters is one of the few occasions minotaurs indulge in meat, feasting on the kills as a show of gratitude and reverence for the hunters’ skills.
Minotaurs tend to be blunt and literal, rarely engaging in overly clever wordplay, sarcasm, or irony. Flaring nostrils and rolling eyes can be intimidating expressions when viewed by non-minotaurs, but to a minotaur, they can convey a complex story with emotional and even spiritual elements. Minotaurs wishing to emphasize a certain emotion occasionally use piercings and tattoos, though minotaurs who lean too heavily into these adornments to look fierce often come off as a bit foolish to their peers. The minotaur saying “an angry bull stamps once and gores twice” is both an admonition against overly aggressive displays and a reminder that the creature truly to be feared is one who speaks with their actions.
Animundi
Base
Minotaurs, Makers of Myths
The Minotaur of Animundi are one of the peoples of the world with the longest history, having existed before the Rifts Era and continued beyond such. they were the first to meet the Dwarves and the first to embrace the newer deities of craft and creation when they arrived.
Due to this, many minotaur consider themselves the first 'defenders of the realms' stories', and many a minotaur great work has just been a ubstitute for a legendary artifiact recreated from tales from off world. One of the most notable is a transforming cuirass made from Mithral and Active magic.
You Might...
- Have a seemingly inborne affinity for itemcraft or spellcraft.
Other's Probably...
- Think you can pull items out of material, rather than create them Or pull them out of thin air.
Names
Golarion
Actilea, Iraiasos, Paxaidio, Rotherion, Zavmandris
Alignment and Faith
Golarion
Long traditions of isolation have resulted in most minotaurs taking an evenhanded approach to events. Many tend toward an unbiased outlook that allows for adaptation. Those who have poor interactions with other humanoids, particularly those met with violence or intolerance, might choose to recede into a chosen lair, ruin, or fortification that they guard fiercely, which sadly perpetuates the tales of brutal minotaurs.
Minotaurs raised by their own people tend to avoid association with deities of any stripe—little surprise given their creation legend. Divine beings are thought of as petty and uncaring, if not by intent then by the sheer magnitude of their power. Many minotaurs adopt logical or spiritual philosophies as a way of reconciling their existence. Mysteries are puzzles yet unanswered, ones that can be explained with careful thought and study. When minotaurs decide to follow deities, they’re primarily drawn to those concerned with self-improvement and self-control, like Irori and Nethys.
Popular Edicts: construct architecture of lasting beauty, seek out ever more perplexing puzzles, hone one’s prowess.
Popular Anathema: leave fate to godly hands rather than mortal initiative, pass up the chance to investigate a mystery.
To Come
